


sometimes love bloomed and sometimes dreams die

by PrinceDrew



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1800s, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Scottish Mythology, Captivity, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Kelpie - Freeform, Kelpie!Connor, M/M, Period-Typical Ableism, Selkie - Freeform, Selkie!Evan, Zoe's here for a hot second, and heidi is mention a lot but she doesn't show up, at least a little, if you want anything tagging, let me know, no one at all, no one is straight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 01:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12972801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceDrew/pseuds/PrinceDrew
Summary: They had found Evan two years ago before the loch, lying on the beach battered and bruised from a storm, his arm - his front flipper - broken, shattered really, from where he had been thrown against a rock. They had snatched up his sealskin and took him back to their shared cottage, and nursed him to health.When he had asked to leave, they had refused.When he tried to escape, they explained to him they didn’t want him to get to hurt.When he tried to escape again, they moved inland, away from the shore, and said it was all for the best.---“You’re not human, are you?” Connor asked him. “I can tell.”“No,” Evan said, because what point in there was lying? “I’m a selkie.”





	sometimes love bloomed and sometimes dreams die

**Author's Note:**

> I thought this would be short.
> 
> Title taken from The Once's By the Glow of The Kerosene Light, and if you want like, a mood going into this fic, listen to their album 'Row Upon Row of People They Knew', because that's pretty much all I listened to writing this.
> 
> Also, just for reference:  
>  **Kelpies** are malicious Scottish water spirits that can take the form of a human or a horse in order to capture humans and drag them into their lochs and drown them so that they can't eat them.  
>  **Selkies** are Irish, Scottish, Faroese, and Icelandic mythological creatures that never did anything to hurt anyone as far as I can tell. They live as seals in the water, and shed their skin to become human on land. They are sorely, sorely mis

It wasn’t the same as the sea.

The loch was nice, and it was connected to the sea, but it was useless if he couldn’t swim to it, so it wasn’t the same.

They said it would be better for him. They said he’d be happier if he was by water again. They said a lot of things, but it mostly boiled down to ‘we know what’s best for you, Evan’.

Alana had told him as such before they left, smiling at him like her insides were a storm.

“You understand why we’re doing this, right, Evan?” she asked, pushing her glasses up her nose. “We don’t hate you or anything. It’s - it’s for the best.”

They hid his sealskin again. On the journey over, they had let him clutch it close, let him hold it once again, soft and comforting to touch, the scent of sea salt still fresh to him, but as soon as they got near the lake, Jared had taken it from him.

“It’s for the best,” he explained, giving it to Alana who vanished into the loch-side cottage. “You’ll just - you’ll just hurt yourself if you go back out there. So we’ll keep it for you, alright?”

 _No_ , Evan had wanted to say. _No, it’s not alright. No, I need my sealskin. No, I want to go home._

He had nodded instead, and said nothing.

Alana was nice. Jared was Jared. They meant well.

They had found Evan two years ago before the loch, lying on the beach battered and bruised from a storm, his arm - his front flipper - broken, shattered really, from where he had been thrown against a rock. They had snatched up his sealskin and took him back to their shared cottage, and nursed him to health.

When he had asked to leave, they had refused.

When he tried to escape, they explained to him they didn’t want him to get to hurt.

When he tried to escape again, they moved inland, away from the shore, and said it was all for the best.

It had worked for a while, being inland. Then the smog and the soot of the city had clouded Evan’s lungs, and the cold of the winter wasn’t the same as the cold of the sea, and he missed his mother, and he fell ill, fits of panic seizing hold of him and not letting go. He only began to recover when they brought him seashells and fish and other such things from the coast, but not once did they give him sealskin back.

“It’s dangerous for you in the sea,” Jared had told once, as Evan had stared at the broth in front of him and wished it was a whole fish. “We just - you were almost dead when we found you. 

He didn’t bother to tell them that he had lived in the sea for years more than they even knew. He didn’t bother to tell them that while he could live ashore, he wouldn’t thrive like he did in the sea. He didn’t bother to tell them that while he was better, he wasn’t well.

Then they moved to the loch.

It wasn’t all due to him, he knew. He heard the whispers at times, when they weren’t so much whispers and more just abuse hurled at their city flat, saw Alana crying and curled in the corner more than once, had once tried to tend to Jared’s injuries so Alana didn’t see them.

The cottage was lonely, slightly uphill from the loch’s shoreline, the nearest villages a good half-day journey in either direction, barely a dip on the horizon. Its rooms were lonelier, Jared and Evan sharing what should have been a guest room that was too small for two beds, Alana by herself in the only actual bedroom, the fireplace in the front room trying its best to warm the entire cottage. It wasn’t as though Evan spent much time inside anyway.

He spent most of his time by the loch shore, just staring out over the water. Alana would bring him food, and sometimes just sit with him, watching Jared’s fishing boat bob along with the waves in the centre of the loch. Maybe she thought Evan was watching him too.

It was one of those days when he first saw Connor.

“There’s a horse,” Alana had said, pointing along the shoreline, down where it was more plant than water, and when Evan looked, sure enough, there was one. 

It was a pure jet black stallion, head raised and staring at Evan and Alana, water dripping down his neck. Even from the distance they were at, Evan could tell the soft silk nature of his coat and mane, which almost billowed in the breeze, and he looked as though even his wildest gallop would be nothing but smooth and pleasant for the rider.

“It’s beautiful,” Alana whispered, her grip on Evan’s shoulder. “It - it must belong to someone. There’s no chance that it couldn’t. It - it’s -”

“I-It’s a Kelpie,” Evan murmured, and he felt her surprise, and knew she was staring at him. He swallowed, keeping his eyes on the Kelpie and he felt his face flame. Most days, he didn’t speak, not even to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ like he was raised to.

Perhaps they thought he was mute. Perhaps that was why they hadn’t bothered him most days.

“How can you tell?” she asked, her voice still a hushed whisper, as though she was scared it would chase him off.

“Its hooves are wrong,” he told her, eyes not leaving the kelpie. If there was fog obscuring him, the fault would have been more easily missed. Kelpies weren’t ones to use glamours to conceal flaws, his mother had told him, and the hooves could never be right on one.

“Oh,” Alana had gone. “Oh.”

They had looked away then, to watch Jared try and haul in a load of fish, and when Evan had looked back, the kelpie had gone, though he couldn’t quite shake or place the feeling of being watched.

Alana told Jared about the kelpie that night when he came back, over the bowls of broth she had served, and he frowned, as if he expected it but hoped it wouldn’t happen.

“We won’t open the doors to strangers then,” he said, as if they didn’t already do that. As if Alana didn’t take Evan to hide in the back rooms when there was a knock on the door and Jared didn’t hide a knife on himself when he answered. As if a stranger would actually come to the door. “And perhaps Evan shouldn’t go down to the shore anymore.”

“No.” He had spoken before he had even realised he wanted to. He hadn’t realised he had forgotten what his own voice sounded like earlier. Jared and Alana were staring at him again, their gazes piercing yet still wavering.

“No?” Jared repeated, as if assuring himself he heard what he heard. “Evan, what do you mean ‘no’?”

Perhaps he should have kept quiet.

“I - I…” he swallowed. “I n-need the loch. You - you’re t-the one more at risk, i-if you’re fishing every day. I - I’ll be fine. I promise.”

Jared and Alana just looked at each other, frowning, then Jared looked away, and Alana smiled at Evan, as if he was a child refusing their tea.

“Staying inside would be for the best,” she said kindly, soft and sweet like she always did.

But that didn’t matter. They couldn’t keep him locked up inside the cottage. They couldn’t.

He needed the water. He needed the soft lapping of the waves, needed the cold, icy water to dip his hand into, needed to know it was still there.

“P-Please, you can't t-take the loch away from me,” he begged, desperation edging into his voice. “Please, it’s t-the only thing I have. You _can’t_.”

“You have us, Evan,” Alana said, still soft and sweet, still smiling reaching for his hands, only to still when he flinched and edged away from her, and neither she nor Jared said anything when he stood up and left for the bedroom, their murmurs dancing around his head as he slipped away into a dreamless sleep early that evening.

They didn’t protest the next day when he sat at the water’s edge, though Alana did not bring food like she usually did, insisting that Evan come inside to eat. She wrapped a shawl around his shoulders and warned him to be careful, and didn’t venture outside of the cottage herself.

It was late evening, the sky dark and the cottage windows glowing gold as they waited for Jared to come back ashore when the kelpie first approached. Slowly, so slowly that Evan thought the ripples in the water were just fish that had come too close the shore. Then the water breached, just a few feet away from where Evan was sat, and he realised how wrong he was.

Only his head extended out of the water, forelock and mane plastered to his coat, pondweed entangled and woven within. His eyes were fiery, yet soulless, and he appeared to be grinning at Evan, though his face was still.

“You spoiled my fun,” he said, his voice low, and smooth, and wrong. “I hope you know that.”

Evan swallowed, and stared at the kelpie.

“I d-don’t find the idea of - of my f-friends being eaten,” Evan told him, and he - not really laughed, but chuckled at least.

He tried to ignore the fact he called them his friends because he didn’t know what they actually were to him.

“Each to his own, I suppose,” he said. “My name is Connor.”

Connor. It suited him, in an odd way that meant a name could suit a kelpie.

“Ev - Evan,”,” he told him. “My - My name is Evan.”

He moved then, shifting from sitting in order to lie down on his stomach, his head hanging over the edge. All he could hear was the waves lapping against each other, and a desire burned within him to reach out and stroke the kel- _Connor’s_ nose.

Was he immune to the sticky pelt of a kelpie? His mother hadn’t told him that if he was. Only to stay away from kelpies, and to cross running water should he ever been unfortunate enough to see one.

“You’re not human, are you?” Connor asked him. “I can tell.”

“No,” Evan said, because what point in there was lying? “I’m a selkie.”

Connor appeared to tilt his head, his eyes still on Evan.

“Then what are you doing so far inland?” he asked. “The sea is miles away. You could swim to it, perhaps, but it would be more than three days journey, even through my loch and my sister’s.”

Well. Kelpies had families, it seemed. Perhaps their lochs were connected.

“They took my sealskin,” Evan murmured, and there was quiet for a moment, he and Connor just staring at each other.

“Who did?” Connor asked. “Your friends?”

Evan nodded, and in the next moment, Connor had disappeared.

In the next, water was surging forward, splashing against the edge of the loch, and then a sheer and _awful_ noise too human, too much like a shriek to be real that made Evan’s insides shrivel and curl and feel _not good_ and then Connor - Connor leapt from the loch, over Evan’s head, the ground shaking as he landed.

“I’ll destroy them!” he roared, his hooves pounding as he charged forwards, towards the cottage, and Evan stared for only a moment, before he was up, scrambling, heart racing as he ran, _no_ repeating in his head as he caught up to the stallion.

Evan threw himself in front of Connor, his arms stretched wide, heart still pounding in his chest, staring at the horse that reared before him before it dropped back to the ground with a thunderous sound.

“Move!” Connor’s head was lowered, but still shaking, pawing at the ground, and Evan was keenly aware of just how _huge_ Connor was.

“Don’t - Don’t hurt them!” Evan yelled, chest hurting as he panted. “Please, don’t! They didn’t mean any harm!”

“‘They didn’t mean any harm’ is pointless when they did cause harm!” Connor yelled back, his eyes nothing but cold fury. “They took you from your home -”

“I was injured -”

“They took your sealskin!”

“They thought they were helping!”

“So fucking what?! They clearly aren’t!”

“I don’t know where my sealskin is!” He was screeching. Why was he screeching? “So hurting them would be pointless!”

That, at least, gave Connor pause.

It was storming, Evan noticed - when did it start? - ice sharp bullets piercing through his layers of clothing as he stared at the stallion in front of him. Connor raised his head, no longer pawing at the ground, instead deathly still, uncaring of the rain.

“I’ll find out where it is,” he said at last. “I’ll visit you in three days. Do not speak to me. Do not say anything unless it is to convince them. Do you understand?”

Evan nodded, his throat feeling hollow yet full.

“Good.” Connor had said. “Good.”

Then with a flash of lightning that blinded Evan for a moment, he was gone and Evan was suddenly aware of Alana calling, almost screaming for him from the entrance of their cottage.

He tried to ignore the look on both her and Jared’s faces when he returned to them, tried to ignore how Alana felt his forehead and asked him why he stayed outside. He tried to ignore how she insisted that he go to bed early, and how she heaped blankets onto him as if the very weight of them could save him from illness.

The next day, even though the weather was reasonable, Alana kept Evan inside, claiming he was sickening for something, that his shivering was proof that he caught a chill. She kept him bed and read to him from a book of fairy tales, though she would skip over words, stuttering over ones he knew she could easily say aloud.

“Jared taught me to read, you know,” she told him early that evening, breaking pieces of bread for him in her hands, as if she needed something to do. “Before we knew you. He spent evenings teaching me how. I knew a little before him, of course, but he taught me more than they would’ve liked.”

Evan had nodded, ate his bread and said nothing.

She let Evan go out the next day, because even she couldn’t deny his symptoms of good health and the clear skies. But even though Evan did nothing but sit beside the loch as he always did, there was no sign to be found of Connor.

On the third day, it stormed. It stormed so hard Alana refused to let Jared or Evan go outside, telling them to stay near the fireplace. Jared sat close to Evan, his eyes flicking over the pages of his book, then once over to Evan.

“Do you want to learn how to read?” he asked, sliding the book closer to Evan. “I’m - I’m not the best teacher, but I’ve helped Alana, so if you want…”

Evan shook his head, and traced shapes into the ashes of the fire. If Jared and Alana exchanged looks again, he didn’t see, and was thankful for that.

Late into the evening, the storm still thrashing outside their cottage, there was a knock on the door. Three steady raps echoing around the cottage. Alana looked up sharply, gripping her shawl tight, wringing it around in her hands, before she stood up, gesturing for Evan to follow, but he shook his head, and stayed sat where he was.

“Evan -”

“Leave him, Alana,” Jared murmured, his tone low, before he cleared his throat and called out. “Who is it? What business do you have here?”

There was a pause, a moment, then a voice, as clear and as familiar to Evan as his mother’s, rang out.

“My name is Connor Murphy, and I am a travelling merchant. Unfortunately, I misjudged the length of time for today’s journey, so I’ve been caught out in this storm. May I rest here for tonight?”

Jared was silent for a moment, and Evan noticed then the silver knife gleaming in his hands.

“It was raining when we woke up,” he said, eyes on the door. “Surely as someone who travels for a living, you would have known to delay your journey another day.”

“It was not raining when I woke up,” Connor replied. “I am sorry for any trouble I may be causing you, but are you sure I cannot stay the night?”

“I am sure,” Jared said. He was gripping the knife tighter now, though it was trembling in his grip. “We’ve heard rumours of a kelpie on this shore, I’m afraid. We have to take precautions, you see.”

There was a pause then, long and drawn out, so long that Evan began to wonder as to whether or not Connor had left, but then he spoke again.

“Kelpies are myths, good sir, but I’m afraid illness is not. If you have no bed to spare, I would be happy to sleep beside the fire. If you have no food to spare, I would be happy to go hungry. But sir, you are the only shelter I can see for miles both north and south, so I beg you to let me stay the night.”

Silence again, like a thick and smothering blanket over the cottage. Then Evan spoke, the words tumbling out before he could think.

“Let him in.”

Alana and Jared turned to him, Alana shaking as she stared at him, her eyes wide and almost fearful, but Jared was still, his gaze almost steady as he looked Evan up and down. The knife was still shaking in his grasp.

“Please,” Evan whispered, his voice small and him feeling like he was smaller still. “He’s n-not a - he’s not one of them. I would know. Let him in. P-Please.”

It took a moment, Alana and Jared still staring at him all the while, then Jared rose, slowly, before he crossed over to the door, placing his hands on the latch they used in lieu of an actual lock.

“We will let you in,” Jared said, his voice low, “but you have to leave in the morning, no matter what the weather, since we cannot afford to keep you for longer than an evening. Not only that, but if you attempt to harm us, I will not be afraid to force you to leave.”

Quiet for a second, and then Connor spoke.

“That’s fair enough. May I come in now?”

“You can,” Jared said, lifting the latch as he did so, and then he opened the door, stepping aside so that Connor could enter, which he did.

Now, Evan knew that kelpies were meant to be attractive. His mother had warned him of that as well, stating that any exceptionally pretty human he saw should never be approached, in case they were simply a kelpie waiting for their next meal.

That didn’t mean he was prepared for Connor’s human form as he swept into the tiny front room.

It was his hair that Evan noticed first, if only because he was so used his own and Jared’s being quite closely cropped at the sides. Connor’s was much longer, down to his shoulders, a rich oaken-brown colour despite the fact it was soaking through, though if it was from the rain or due to the nature of kelpies, Evan couldn’t say. He was tall enough, though he was slightly hunched, as if ashamed of it, his clothes slightly ill-fitting on him, though certainly fine looking. 

And his eyes. Evan had never seen such a pair of eyes in his life. Ice cold, almost magic blue, yet with warmer brown slices woven in.

Perhaps kelpie magic was to blame. Perhaps Evan was so desperate for companionship from someone who wasn’t Alana or Jared he would have found Connor attractive no matter how he looked. But he couldn’t stop staring.

He wouldn’t stop staring.

It seemed as though Jared couldn’t stop either, and his cheeks slightly blushed and his mouth agape.

“Thank you for allowing me to stay the night,” Connor said, and then he did a sort of half-bow ducking of his head towards Alana. “I apologise for my intrusion into your home, miss. If it weren’t for the storm, I wouldn’t have bothered you at all.”

“There is no intrusion nor bother,” Alana replied, though her gaze was on her hands. “You simply needed refuge, that’s all. Would you care for some food, sir?”

“If there’s some to spare,” Connor said, and as Alana stood to fetch him some bread, his gaze turned to Evan, and smiled in a manner that was wasn’t quite unkind. “Hello there. May I ask for your name?”

Evan opened his mouth, then closed it, and kept quiet.

“His name is Evan,” Jared told Connor, his gaze never leaving Connor’s face, even as he frowned.

“Can he not speak for himself?” he asked, as if he hadn’t requested it himself.

“He’s simple,” Jared replied, almost too quickly, perhaps. “My mother is friends with his mother, and since he could not cope as easily with city life as she could, we took him in, and she pays us well for doing so. He likes to watch me fish during the day, but does little else. I wouldn’t bother with him, if I were you.”

Evan was sorely tempted to drag Jared into the fucking loch himself.

“Duly noted,” Connor said, and then he sat on the floor across from Evan, near the fireplace, accepting the bread Alana gave him with a simple thanks.

Jared and Connor fell into an easy conversation after that, or rather, Jared let Connor talk at length, only occasionally joining in so he could ask a question, or to add in his own anecdote Evan was sure he was making up. Alana did not join in, instead having fetched a book for herself, and she sat closer to Evan than he thought she normally did. All Evan did was trace patterns into the ashes again.

“You must be a fisherman, am I correct?” Connor asked after some time had passed, Jared finishing up a tale that had something to do with an oversized trout.

“There’s not much else around to do,” Jared told him, nodding. “I fish mostly for us three here, and we get by just fine. The town’s too far away to sell fish, so I sell whatever trinkets Alana is able to make - some awfully pretty things wash up on shore, you see, and they make nice necklaces - and buy what we need. The money we get sent helps at times.”

Connor nodded like he was entertaining a child. Perhaps in a certain way - to him - he was.

It occurred to Evan that he didn’t really know how old kelpies could be.

“I have something that might help you then,” Connor said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out something that glinted in the low light of the cottage, like the flash of a silver-scaled fish in the deep sea, and gave it to Jared. “Your catches should increase tenfold.”

Jared’s hands were trembling as he took it. “Thank you,” he said, turning over and over in his hands. “I’m sure it will help. Thank you.”

“You’re wel -”

“I think we should Evan and I should go to bed,” Alana said, standing as she shut her book with a snap. “It’s late enough as is it, and the both of you should turn in soon as well. Good night to the both of you. Evan?”

She was holding her hand like he was meant to take it, so he did, nodding his head at Connor and Jared and murmuring something that sounded like goodnight. Alana didn’t let go of his hand until she was in her bedroom, and shut the door in Evan’s face after bidding him a goodnight and sweet dreams.

When he awoke the next morning, the sky much clearer, Connor was still there, laughing with Jared over something Evan didn’t quite catch or understand, though he stopped when he saw Evan. He rose up from where he sat, nodding at Evan for only a moment before he turned back to Jared and Alana, who sat by the fireplace, eyes not lifting from the pot she was stirring.

“I should probably be going now,” he said, doing that awkward little not-quite-a-bow bow again. “Thank you for allowing me to spend the night here.”

Jared seemed almost taken aback by this, blinking twice. “Are you sure?” he asked. “You haven’t eaten -”

“What I was given last night is enough to keep me going,” Connor said. “I’ll return if I ever need to again, but I hope I won’t be caught in a storm again.”

With that, he left, shutting the door behind him and leaving the cottage in silence.

“He was quite handsome, wasn’t he?” Jared asked after a while, his eyes not leaving the door as though Connor would burst back through it at any moment. “That Connor.”

Alana just shrugged, her back to Jared as she gave Evan a bowl of porridge. “He was okay. Nothing special.”

It took a day for her to look at Jared properly again. It took three for her to speak to him like she always did. He heard her apologise for it late at night, when they thought he was asleep, and Jared’s assurance that it was fine, it was okay, everything was alright.

When Evan told Connor of this the day after, he simply shook his head, as if it were expected.

“Humans are like that,” he said in lieu of a proper explanation, before pausing. He was back as a horse now, which Evan assumed was his natural form. “Speaking of which, the man called you simple.”

“He did,” Evan replied. He was lying on his stomach again, though he wasn’t gazing at Connor, instead looking at the ripples his hand made as he dragged it through the cool water of the loch.

They didn’t let him go swimming. The closest he got nowadays were the odd baths they had.

“Do you want me to capsize his boat?” Connor asked, as though he was asking for the time of day. “Because I can capsize his boat if you want.”

“What?!” Evan cried, before clamping his hands over his mouth. When neither Alana or Jared appeared, he released them, but leant closer to Connor, and hissed, “No!”

“Why ever not?” There was a pout in his voice, and Evan couldn’t stand it. Minnows kept darting towards and away from his hand, so he watched those instead of looking at Connor.

“Alana wouldn’t be able to bear it if he drowned,” he told him, flexing his fingers in the water. They were starting to chill now.

“Why not?” Connor repeated, tilting his head as he did.

“She’s like that.” Perhaps he could catch one of the minnows in his hand. It wouldn’t take two seconds. “She worries a lot.”

‘Worries a lot’ did not cover it. Whenever Jared had to leave for the village, she would sit by the window, watching, waiting, calling Evan in earlier but staying up later herself. Upon Jared’s return, she would hug him like it had been years instead of days. She did it back when they lived in the city too, even if Jared was only out for the day.

“Then why should she be able to bear it if you left?” Connor asked.

Water splashed. The minnows near Evan’s hand scattered. He was shaking. 

He wondered if Connor noticed that.

“…it’s different,” he replied at last. “It’s not like I’ll - I’ll be dead or anything. She’ll get over it, because humans _do_.”

They had gotten over his mother soon enough. A year after she returned to the sea and left the fisherman who had taken her and her sealskin, he had a new wife with a new child on the way.

That child would be at least have been half-grown by then. Perhaps they had more. Evan didn’t know, nor did he care to. His mother had moved him away from that place after that, to somewhere more remote, to a place where there were no humans to be found.

Or so they had thought. Before the storm, that was.

“How come Jared was so infatuated with you?” he asked, if only for something. “I’ve never see him act that way before.”

“Kelpie magic,” Connor replied. “I am designed to infatuate my prey, after all. Unfortunately, I can only draw in what’s attracted to my form. That’s why I first appeared as a horse to your… Alana, was it? My human form would have been useless. Also, I can confirm your sealskin is not in that front room. I searched all over for it, and I could not find it.”

Evan nodded, and didn’t say much else. He kept quiet for most of the week, regardless of if Connor was there at the at the lochside or not. He didn’t try to catch the minnows again.

Jared tried to teach him how to read part way through the week, tracing what he called ‘letters’ into the fireside ashes, telling Evan what each one was, though they all swam and merged into each other in front of Evan’s eyes when he tried to read them.

“Do you not recognise that?” Jared would ask, pointing to one, but Evan couldn’t tell if it was a ‘b’ or a ‘d’ or a ‘p’ most days.

It was storming again when Connor returned.

Alana and Jared were trying to teach the first the five letters of the alphabet to Evan when there were three steady raps at the door.

“I’m sorry to bother you once again,” his voice rang out, “but I misjudged my journey. May I take refuge here?”

Jared was up and opening the door before Evan had time to think. He greeted Connor like one would an old friend, or a family member, and all Evan could do was keep his head down and his mouth shut, eyes on Alana once again. Her eyes were kept on the ashes, fingers tracing over what she had written.

Much of the night went as before; Connor and Jared’s voices floated over him and Alana, who didn’t speak nor look at Jared, or even move to fetch herself a book like she did the time before.

Sometime into the evening, Connor turned to her, his hand on his bag and a glint of - of _something_ in his eyes that made Evan’s insides churn.

“I noticed you reading last time I was here,” Connor said.

“I was,” Alana replied, still not looking towards him. “There was little else to do.”

Connor’s only response was to open his bag, and pull out a book, somehow undamaged from the storm outside, not quite slim but not quite thick either. It was only then that Alana looked up, and gasped, her eyes shining as she did.

“I thought then perhaps you would like this,” Connor told her, handing her the book. “Frankenstein. It is a bit horrific, perhaps, but I think you’d like it.”

Her hands were shaking as she took it. “Thank you,” she said. “We don’t have much and - this - this must have cost you and - and -”

“It was no great cost,” Connor dismissed. “I only ask that you enjoy it.”

“Thank you,” Alana repeated, already opening the book. “Just - just simply thank you.”

And she began to devour the book, her eyes soaking up the words on each and every page, an almost manic grin on her face the entire time, and Jared and Connor kept talking and laughing, until Evan stood up and went to bed himself, not even excusing himself.

For most of the night, he simply laid in bed, his eyes open in the dark, trying to remember what his mother sounded like or how it felt to be able to dive deep below the waves and not having to feel the burning pressure in his chest for longer than Alana or Jared could even imagine. He tried to remember how it felt to eat a fish that wasn’t from freshwater, one that he caught by himself for himself.

The door to the room opened and shut.

“They think you’re asleep.” Connor’s voice rang out in the dark, and it took every Evan had for him to not bolt up and flee.

“Why…” He paused, and swallowed, turning onto his side so it was a little easier. “Why are you in here?”

“He gave me his bed for the night,” Connor explained, his footsteps oddly soft on the stone floor. “Something about how I must be weary and in need of a good rest. I doubt they would keep your sealskin in the same room where you sleep, but it’s still good to check.”

Evan nodded, unsure of Connor could see it or not, and shut his eyes, and tried to ignore the sounds of Connor shuffling around the room, as if it were that easy. As if anything were that easy.

Sleep came to him in the early hours of the morning, when the sky was light and he was too tired to even think.

When he awoke, Connor was gone, and it was late in the afternoon. Alana fussed over him again, making sure he wasn’t sickening for something, but there was something lighter to her step, almost a trill to her voice when she spoke.

She read passages of Frankenstein to him, grinning all the while, as if the world’s greatest secret was contained within. The words were nothing but fog to him, but he nodded along, if only because she would want him to, asking questions where he thought it’d be appropriate.

“The loch’s been good for you, I think,” she told him that night just as Jared walked back into the cottage. “You never used to speak in the city, but you do now.”

Evan agreed, and nodded and smiled and acted like he didn’t feel sick to his stomach, and pretended he knew the difference between ‘i’ and ‘j’, which lasted up until Alana asked him to spell Jared’s name.

The next day, he asked Connor how to get to the sea, and the kelpie went oddly quiet, at least at first.

“You weren’t planning on staying here?” he asked, his voice low, and Evan shook his head.

“I’m a selkie,” he replied. The minnows were back now. “I can’t stay in freshwater. I need the sea.”

“My loch is large enough for you to stay,” Connor said, and there was something… pleading? Something pleading in his tone. “There’s more than plenty fish for you.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Evan told him. A minnow flitted over his open palm, and he thought about closing it, just to remember how it felt to snatch something up.

“If Jared and Alana worry you, I can easily keep them -”

“Connor,” Evan interrupted, and he looked up into Connor’s eyes. “I miss my home. I miss my mum. I can’t - the loch wouldn’t be good to me. I need the sea.”

Connor was quiet for a few moments more, then slowly nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. You can get to the sea through my sister’s loch. I’ll guide you there when the time comes.”

Evan nodded himself, and then began to tell Connor how about how much Alana liked the book he had given her, just for something to say, and then he asked about Connor’s sister. He learnt kelpies didn’t like other kelpies that much, and that included family. Or maybe that was just a Connor thing.

Five days later - five days of sitting by the loch and talking to Connor, of sitting beside the fireplace and listening to Alana or Jared read aloud - it stormed again, and as if summoned, Connor appeared, coughing and wheezing, face flushed and skin pale when Jared opened the door.

“I suppose all the travelling through storms caught up with me, huh?” he asked, before wheezing once again and collapsing into Jared’s arms, going limp, Alana and Jared sharing worried looks with each other, as if they hadn’t met this man only twice before.

It was impressive. If Evan wasn’t aware of the fact he was a kelpie, he would have fallen for the trick himself.

They put him in Alana’s room, in case what he had would spread to them. Alana moved into his and Jared’s room, and Jared slept beside the fireside again. Connor’s coughing would echo around the cottage, and every hour or so, Alana would rise from her bed to check on him, bringing bowls of broth or cups of water to him.

Within a day, Connor had ‘recovered’.

Within another, he was leaving.

Just before he left, he paused at the doorway, turning back around to face them. There was an odd sort of smile on his face, like he had thought of the world’s best joke and wanted to share it.

“May I speak to Evan for a moment?” he asked. “I know he’s simple and all, but I would like to.

“If you want too,” Jared said, blinking, and Connor kept smiling, walking back into the cottage, and gesturing for Evan to follow him, which he did.

When they reached the back of the cottage, Connor whirled around to face Evan, grinning manically, pulling Evan close, chest to chest, their foreheads almost touching.

“It’s stitched to the underside of her blanket,” he whispered, his eyes glinting. “Your seal skin. They hid it in plain sight. I loosened some of the stitching for you, but you need to do the rest. Could you do that?”

His sealskin.

Two years of - of nothing, of anything, of not having it, and according to Connor, it was - it was there. Stitched to the underside of a blanket.

He could practically feel the sea around him.

“Thank… thank you,” Evan whispered, swallowing, words caught in his throat, trembling all the while. “Thank you, so - so much.”

“You’re welcome,” Connor replied, voice still breathy, and then, like he was daring himself too, he pressed his lips against Evan’s, for a moment, two, before breaking off and smiling at him.

“I’ll see tomorrow,” he promised, and like that, he walked past Evan, and out of the cottage.

That night, when Jared was sleeping, Evan found his silver knife, and hid it in his bed frame.

The next day, when Alana was helping Jared set out onto the loch, he snuck into her bedroom, knife in his hand, and found the blanket. It was soft wool, an off-grey and white tartan that she had bought back when they lived in the city. And when Evan turned it over, there it was.

Soft, light grey dappled with darker brown-grey spots. A little darker than he remembered it, perhaps, but it was _his_ , it was _there_.

He got to work immediately.

The knife sliced through the thread quite easily. Maybe picking it out would have neater, less of a noticeable trail but all Evan could think about was the sea, and home, and his mother.

“Evan? Are you going down to the loch today?” Alana called just as Evan caught the sound of the door slamming, and so he stopped at a side and half of undone stitches, and walked out, murmuring something about trying to find Frankenstein so he could learn how to read it.

When he went down to the loch, he managed to catch a minnow in his hands, though he let it go as soon as Connor emerged.

“Can you promise me something?” Evan asked him, drying his hand on the grass.

“If it’s not too much bother,” Connor replied, and Evan could only look down into the water.

“...when I leave,” he began, all the space in his chest feeling crushed, and compressed, “could you leave Alana and Jared alone?”

“...if you so desire,” Connor replied, and they didn’t speak about it for the rest of the day.

Two days later, it stormed.

Two days later, Evan cut through the last thread holding sealskin and blanket together, and the blanket fell from his hands and all that was left was _him_.

Life coursed through his veins in a way it hadn’t for years.

He could leave. He could go. He could -

“Evan? Are you in here?” Alana asked, and then the door was opening, and he was frozen, and then there was nothing but shrieking, shrill awful shrieking that hurt his ears and then Alana was _there_ trying to grab it from his hands her nails digging into his skin and - and -

\- and Evan ran.

He ran through the cottage, past Jared who only then seemed to realised why Alana was shrieking, through the door, then down, down towards, and he could hear Alana yelling after him, scarcely audible over the howling winds.

“Evan!” Was her throat not hurting? “Evan! Evan, _please_! It’s not safe for you out there!”

A sheer and awful noise too much like Connor bellowed across the loch, and Evan still ran. 

He kept running, and running, his sealskin clutched tight to his chest and the loch was there, he was almost there, just a little more, there, one foot hit the water, then the other, then he was pulling on his sealskin, just like he always used to, and then he was _transformed_.

And he swam.

It felt odd, in a way, to have flippers and a tail again instead of arms and legs, but it was natural, second instinct, and he dipped and dived and twisted his way through the water, simply feeling the way it rushed around 

He breached the water, if only because he had to, and turned to face the cottage. The door was still open, banging against the walls of the cottage, the lights inside making it glow golden. On the shore, Alana was kneeling, Jared by her side, holding her close from what Evan could tell.

He couldn’t make out their faces. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to or not.

Cold water brushed over him, and then Connor was there, beside him.

“It’s time to say goodbye,” he murmured, and Evan agreed, and dove back under the waves.

True to his word, Connor escorted Evan back to the sea. Conversation flowed through the pair of them easily, Evan recounting tales of his childhood to Connor while Connor told him about some other creatures he had met. Connor didn’t even seem to mind the fact that Evan had to surface for air every ten minutes or so, nor the fact Evan wasn’t slim enough to fit through some shortcuts he knew.

When they reached the next loch, there was a moment where water, even more chilled than that surrounding the pair, curled itself around Evan, but then Connor snapped “Leave him alone, Zoe,” and it went away.

Evan caught more than enough fish, purely because he could. It felt good to eat something he had caught.

It took them three days to reach where the fresh water turned into the sea. There, they paused, and stared out over the vast darkness that awaited Evan.

“I’ve never seen it before,” Connor told him. “It’s so big, isn’t it?”

“It covers the whole world,” Evan replied. “My mother - when she was young, her parents took her to a place even colder than here.”

“That doesn’t sound possible,” Connor said, and a lull fell upon them. And then, “Are you going to come back?”

Evan hesitated, if only for a moment. “I don’t know,” he admitted, keeping his voice low. “I want to find my mother first.”

Connor nodded, like he understood. “I hope you do,” he said. “I hope you do. Take care of yourself?”

“I will,” Evan promised. “I will.”

Then he dove back underwater, and swam and swam until he was far from the shore, far from Jared and Alana, and from Connor.

He swam until he was free.

**Author's Note:**

> Connor would be a fucking pretty horse, and you can't convince me otherwise.
> 
> This entire fic was an excuse to write about kelpies and selkies and then it got out of hand, but I still like it. A little at least. It's not my best work, but it'll do.
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed this fic! If you have any questions, liked the fic, have feedback or noticed any mistakes, post in the comments below, or at my tumblr [here](http://princedrewwrites.tumblr.com). I'm on there pretty often now. Or, if you just liked the fic and don't want to say anything, just leave a kudos. There's no pressure either way


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